Free Republic

It’s ironic that President Obama so often carps about politics — blaming “politics as usual” or “hyperpartisanship” for everything from the lack of economic growth to joblessness to climate change — when he is the most relentlessly partisan president in recent memory. Obama is a staunch left liberal who finds it very difficult to rise above politics and attempt to unite the country. Arguably, his very best speech, the one delivered in Tucson after the Gabby Giffords shooting, did transcend partisanship. It was an outlier. The president inserted himself into the Trayvon Martin story in a deeply irresponsible manner. Disregarding...

In Colorado there's a calling to vote Yes to recall anti-gun state senators - John Morse (D-11) and Angela Giron (D-3). These two can create a “a wave of fear that runs across every state legislator across the country.” To counter this recall, Gun control group headed by Mark Kelly & Gabby Giffords have television ads running to urge Coloradan to vote "NO" on the recall. westernshootingjournal.com/second-amendment/anti-gun-groups-mobilizing-in-colorado/

At first Paul would only say that Christie was “very precise” in his assertion that you have to win before you can govern. But then the gloves came off. “In other words, say anything, do anything, get elected first, and deceive the people in order to get elected,” Paul said. He accused both parties of saying “whatever they think they have to say” to get elected, but predicted those days are “coming to an end.” “The American people are waking up to the reality that something has to give,” Paul continued, “and it certainly isn’t by saying, ‘Well, say anything...

Americans for Responsible Solutions (ARS), the PAC of Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly focused on gun control, is being forced to refund money to contributors after being caught accepting illegal donations.One of the illegal donations was tied to Bette Midler's private family foundation and another to the Rupa and Bharat B. Bhatt Foundation. Midler's foundation gave $10,000 and the Bhatt foundation contributed $5,000.According to The Center For Public Integrity, both donations were "strictly prohibited" by the IRS:

Another anti-gun group gets caught with the proverbial hand in the cookie jar. This time Gabby Giffords has her prints all over it. The total amount of illegal contributions received was $15,250. That is not a small chunk of change. Giffords’ PAC, Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, received three illegal donations it has been discovered. This is not coincidence or a mistake. One could be a mistake and two could be coincidence. Three times is conspiracy to defraud. Publicintegrity.org reports: Singer, actress and comedian Bette Midler took to Twitter on April 18 to promote Gabby Giffords’ new gun control effort....

Gabby Giffords and her still-weightless astronaut husband are like a gun-grabbing Foghat, eternally playing the state fair circuit of American politics. Now they are literally going on tour again, hoping that their audience will forgo the old favorites and welcome a track off their new album. She’s really just a one-hit wonder hoping to match the airplay of her power ballad “I Suffered a Tragedy So I Have Special Moral Standing (To Advocate Stripping You of Your Fundamental Rights).” The sad truth is that she is the Psy of liberal advocacy, far past her 15 minutes yet valiantly trying to...

Documents revealing legal fees among 60 unsealed; taxpayers picked up the tab

Two and half years after being shot in the head, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords visited a shooting range and fired a gun, her first stop on a seven-state, seven-day bus tour to push for expanded background checks for firearms purchases. Accompanied by her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, on their "Rights and Responsibilities Tour," Giffords, wearing a green cardigan and an arm brace, smiled and waved after she shot the gun at the Clark County Shooting Complex in Las Vegas. Kelly also got in some target practice at the range. This was the first time Giffords shot a gun since...

CINCINNATI - Before riding in the Northside Fourth of July parade on Thursday, former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, will make a plea for expanded background checks for gun buyers. Both Giffords, who was critically wounded in a shooting rampage in 2011, and Kelly are gun owners and say they continue to support gun rights. Giffords fired a gun at a range Monday for the first time since she was shot. They are spreading their message to seven states in seven days on their “Rights and Responsibilities Tour.” They are hoping to appeal to...

Former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords kicked off a seven-state tour Monday to advocate for universal gun background checks. Giffords and husband Mark Kelly started their day in Las Vegas demonstrating that they, too, are gun owners. Giffords fired a gun at a shooting range. It's the first time she's used a gun since a deranged gunman shot her in the head in 2011. A dozen other people were also wounded and six more were killed. Giffords, who's still recovering from the attack, is speaking up for change....

... I was proud of almost all your New England senators, who listened to their constituents, and put safety over the big money of the gun lobby. But like so many Granite Staters, 89 percent of whom support expanded background checks, I was disappointed with Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who did not listen to her constituents and who alone in New England voted in lockstep with the NRA.... When I voted for health care reform, which was not at all popular among my constituents, I got a lot of angry calls about my vote for health care. I listened. I felt...

Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords received the 2013 Profile in Courage award at the John F. Kennedy Library on Sunday in recognition of the political, personal, and physical courage she has demonstrated in her fearless public advocacy for policy reforms aimed at reducing gun violence.

Kelly has thrown down the gauntlet to Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s combative chief executive, on the opening day of the gun lobby’s annual convention in Houston, Texas. Writing in the Houston Chronicle, he accuses LaPierre and the rest of the NRA’s leadership of turning their back on the traditional values of the association in a simple drive for profit.

On NBC's Meet the Press last month, National Rifle Association honcho Wayne LaPierre, the face of the American gun lobby, delivered this message to New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg: "He's going to find out that this is a country of the people, by the people, and for the people, and he can't spend enough of his $27 billion to try to impose his will on the American public. He can't buy America." The day before, Bloomberg had announced that he would spend $12 million of his own money on an ad blitz pressing members of Congress to pass new...

You might have thought that the mangled bodies of 20 dead children would have been enough to overcome the crazed obsessions of the gun lobby. You might have believed that the courage and exhortations of a former congresswoman — her career cut short and her life forever changed by a would-be assassin’s bullet — would have pushed Congress to do the right thing. You might have reasoned that polls showing overwhelming public support for a sensible gun control measure would have persuaded politicians to take a modest step toward preventing more massacres. You would have been wrong. The U.S. Senate...

You know what it comes down to, Barry-0? People don’t trust you. Simple as that. Oh … certainly you do have your supporters. It’s not that NOBODY trusts you .... just most productive Americans above the median IQ. The moochers, leaches and parasites still trust you … they trust you to keep forking over the government checks. When the checks stop coming … when they find that a change of regimes in Washington will necessitate their actually becoming marginally productive again … their fealty to their long-gone here, the great and powerful 0bama, will fade to resentment and scorn. Your...

"The Newtown families and Gabby Giffords are in the gun debate to stay, and over time their voices will be more powerful than the NRA." So said Newsweek's Eleanor Clift during the predictions segment on PBS's McLaughlin Group Friday... "The culture of guns is beginning to go through a transformation in this country," she added. Maybe she should say that with a straight face to the people of Chicago so riddled with the kind of gun violence pending legislation will have absolutely no impact on whatsoever. But nobody seems to care about that - certainly not media members such as...

I am asking every reasonable American to help me tell the truth about the cowardice these senators demonstrated. I am asking for mothers to stop these lawmakers at the grocery store and tell them: You’ve lost my vote. I am asking activists to unsubscribe from these senators’ e-mail lists and to stop giving them money. I’m asking citizens to go to their offices and say: You’ve disappointed me, and there will be consequences.

SENATORS say they fear the N.R.A. and the gun lobby. But I think that fear must be nothing compared to the fear the first graders in Sandy Hook Elementary School felt as their lives ended in a hail of bullets. The fear that those children who survived the massacre must feel every time they remember their teachers stacking them into closets and bathrooms, whispering that they loved them, so that love would be the last thing the students heard if the gunman found them. On Wednesday, a minority of senators gave into fear and blocked common-sense legislation that would have...

An Internet friend relayed this experience to me: A Moment Of Glee I got a phone call today from a true believer, paid for by Mayor Bloomberg. Supposedly from the “Gabby Giffords Campaign Against Gun Violence”, asking me to contact my congressman and senators to demand gun control. I about hurt myself trying to keep cool and reel him in. Such opportunities are very rare. So many ways to mess with their heads. Probably the best zinger was when I asked how Gabby Giffords *husband*, Mark Kelly was doing. What do you mean? Well, he confessed to committing a serious...